There's a very strange thing happening in public transportation
planning and PR hype. Didn't you always think there was a rather
enormous and important difference between a bus and a train?

We always thought so, too – after all, one rides on rubber tires on
streets and roads, and the other usually rides on steel wheels on railway
tracks. And buses run as single vehicles, with one driver per bus
(expensive) while railcars can be coupled in ... well, trains, with one driver
for several cars (cheaper). But apparently a lot of planners,
decisionmakers, bus vendors, and journalists have started to get
confused about the differences between the two modes of transportation.

Of course, it's no secret that rail transit has a whole bunch of that
elusive "it" that city leaders, and transportation planners, crave –
that je ne sais quoi excitement and attractiveness for the public
which pulls riders out of their SUVs and Lexuses and aboard
public transit services. Rail transit has a wide array of attractive
features – starting with speed, of course, but also including riding
comfort, spaciousness, dependability, reliability, sense of safety,
and more – which appeal to the public.

So it's not exactly a mystery why other cities, and other transit
agencies, would like to emulate that success. But some transit
industry people seem to have been smacked with what they
apparently think is a very clever idea: Why spend the money on
rail, when you can just take a bus ... and call it a train?

Transforming lead into gold

This seems to be a lot of what's happening in the current
promotion of "Bus Rapid Transit" – "BRT" – spearheaded by the
US Federal Transit Administration (FTA), whose "BRT" marketing website has
carried the resounding slogan "Think Rail, Use Buses". "That's
the quickest way to describe Bus Rapid Transit" says the FTA.
"BRT combines the quality of rail transit and the flexibility of
buses."

But some promoters have been going even further – transforming
buses into railcars in their promotional and marketing hype, much
like ancient alchemists transformed lead into gold ... In their
imaginations. Some bus vendors have really pushed the
envelope. The transit products vendor MATRA, for example, promotes its optically-guided
CIVIS bus as "the rubber-tired tramway" and claims, "CIVIS
combines comfort and regularity of a street car and the operating
simplicity of a bus."

Some journalists also have gotten on the "bus is rail" bandwagon
– claiming that, in "BRT" systems, "buses operate like trains on
rubber tires." Similarly, syndicated columnist Neal Peirce has
started promoting "BRT" services as "surface subways". But,
while Peirce supports transit and undoubtedly means well, his
effort at terminology obfuscation is rather reminiscent of some
Road Warriors who like to anoint the private automobile as
"personal rapid transit".

Picking up the "rubber-tire subway" theme, Boston's
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (the "T") has gone a
step further with its new Washington St. "BRT", christening it the
"Silver Line" to try to position it as just another rapid transit line
along with the city's elevated and subway lines, Green Line LRT system,
and regional rail services. But, as they watch the latest crop of
big articulated Silver Line buses lumbering through traffic, and in
and out of badly enforced "reserved" lanes, many residents and
community leaders in the Washington St. corridor haven't been
convinced. Some of them, having long been lobbying MBTA for
real rail transit, have dubbed the new service the "Silver Lie".

Boston's Silver Line bus on
Washington St. This is a "subway
on rubber tires"?[Photo: Ross Mair]

Khalida Smalls, an activist with the T Riders Union, dismissed the
"rapid transit" Silver Line with disdain: "The key word here, is bus.
They took the #49 [bus route], painted it silver, and hoped no one
would notice it wasn't a train."[Weekly Dig, 29 Jan. 2003]

Bob Terrell, executive director of the pro-rail Washington Street
Corridor Coalition, has described the MBTA's Silver Line
campaign as a case of deceptive advertising: "The T used the
terminology 'Silver Line' to convey the impression that it's the
equivalent of a rapid transit line. By using the term 'Silver' – like
Red, Blue, Green and Orange – you make people think it's a rail
line" he complained. To a reporter, Terrell also related how,
during the kickoff party on the Silver Line's opening day, an MBTA
police officer came up to him and asked, "Where are the tracks?"[Weekly Dig, 26 Feb 2003]

Despite all the folderol about "rapid transit" and "just like rail",
MBTA management seem very well aware that the Silver Line is not a
rail project. "it's essentially a road project" acknowledged MBTA
then-general manager Robert Prince to Mass Transit magazine in
a 2000 interview, when the Washington St. project was still under
construction. "We're working in conjunction with Massachusetts
Highway to redo the street and put the dedicated right-of-way
down."[Mass Transit, November/December 2000 ]

Atlanta seems to be another city lately infected by the contagious
"Bus is rail. Rail is bus" newspeak. There, suburban movers and
shakers in and around the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC)
have blithely written off bona fide rail transit options and have
been pushing a "BRT" plan running in either HOV lanes or
exclusive arterial lanes which could, one must note, be ultimately
opened to broader motor vehicle traffic in the future (as has
similarly been done with other such operations, like in Houston
and Los Angeles). But this lucrative highway industry project is
not being presented as just another bus plan – it's being
presented as a train project:

"Those who like the proposal to run rubber-tired buses designed
to ride like trains in the high-occupancy-vehicle lanes of I-75
stress that this alternative moves the most passengers for the
smallest investment of money" relates a recent article in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (19 Jan. 2004). Similarly, the
suburban Gwinett County Post really got carried away when it
described the ARC bus plan with the headline "Transit rail would
link county, Cobb". The article went on to dutifully disseminate the
official transit newspeak:

Within eight years, Gwinnettians could get to Cobb County by hopping on
a train-like bus that would travel on dedicated lanes beside interstate
285. Known as bus-rapid transit, the rubber-tired buses that function like
trains are the type of mass transit regional planners would use to move
commuters along the top end of I-285.[Gwinnett Daily Post, 23 January 2004]

And the Journal-Constitution editors themselves seem to have
been sucked into the smoke-and-mirrors realm of the suburban project backers:

A bus by any other name is still just a bus, right? Unless, of course, it's
called a "flex trolley" or "bus rapid transit." in that case, these train-like
buses may be the best, least expensive way to ease traffic along the top
end of I-285, one of metro Atlanta's most infamously congested stretches of highway.[Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 20 Jan. 2004]

Perhaps all this bus-is-train blather is reassuring a few among the
higher echelons of Atlanta's power elite ... but is it really doing a
service to the taxpaying public? For all the talk about "train-like
buses" as the supposedly "least expensive way" to move
passengers, the facts seem to speak otherwise. According to the
latest figures (2002) from the FTA's own National Transit
Database, Atlanta's MARTA transit agency is carrying its rail
transit riders at less than half the cost per passenger-mile that it
is carrying bus riders: $0.24 per p-m by rail vs. $0.54 per p-m by
bus in 2002.

And are passengers flocking to buses or to real trains?
According to the same source, MARTA's rail services carry about 63% of
the total passenger-mileage of the system's two major modes.
On average, each railcar is attracting nearly twice as
many riders as each bus (21.6 for rail vs. 11.3 for bus).
And that's with the extensive "BRT"-type express and limited stop bus
services already operated by MARTA and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority.
Would redefining this kind of bus service as a "train-like
bus" and promoting it as "Bus Rapid Transit" really inspire the
public to crowd aboard, and cut the operating cost in half?[Data: FTA NTD, 2002; photo of MARTA rail station: Jon Bell]

And, for a final recent example of the "bus equals train" newspeak
craze, there's Los Angeles, where the LA County MTA (the major
transit agency) has just decided "to rechristen a 14-mile bus
corridor in the San Fernando Valley as the Metro Orange Line."
Transit advocates attending the MTA meeting were exasperated,
noting that the busway has already gone from being called the
"East-West Busway", to the "Metro Rapid Transitway", and, just
before the latest change, the "Metro Rapidway".

But their biggest gripe seemed to be that using the color
designation (a la Boston's Silver Line) would confuse the public
into thinking this was part of the region's rail system. As the Los
Angeles Times (23 January 2004) reported, "...transit advocates
say the name change seems more like a case of identity crisis for
the busway, and it will only confuse the public."

"I don't understand this…. This will not be user-friendly. This will
be user-confusing" complained transit advocate Kymberleigh
Richards, described as "throwing up her hands." "This isn't even
going to be a rail line" she added.

But LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the MTA's board
chairman, was ready to assure the audience "It is like a rail line on rubber tires."

Are they fooling anybody?

Well, it's all just words. And certainly, words are things politicians love to play with.

But one has to wonder: is anybody really fooled by all this hanky-panky to repackage the bus? Evidently, some planners, transit
officials, and politicians (and perhaps a few journalists) may be
fooling somebody – mainly themselves. But, by and large, the
public probably respond to real, perceptible, qualitative differences
between the kinds of systems and vehicles they're being asked to ride around in.

And, to be sure, most people probably know there are definite
differences between buses and rail vehicles. Railcars tend to be
more spacious. Boarding is usually easier and faster. Ride
quality on rails is immensely smoother (because even the best
pavement degenerates, producing rough, uneven movement).
There are reasons that new LRT lines are practically overwhelmed with passengers.

Even if some planners like to pretend otherwise, there are also
major operational differences which impact efficiency and the
bottom line. Railcars can be much longer than buses, and they
can be coupled in trains. That means easier boarding for
passengers, and lower operating costs because fewer operators
are needed. in icy conditions, trains typically operate more
reliably. And, when buses are actually put on their own right-of-way "like trains", the capital and way-maintenance costs are as
much as, or possibly more than, those of bona fide rail transit.

Certainly, both buses and rail services have major niches, major
roles to fill in the fabric of urban mobility. But, at a time when
transit agencies desperately need to build public trust, trying to
hoodwink people by passing off buses as "trains" does not seem
conducive to fulfilling that need.

in the end, what will hopefully happen is
that the real advantages of rail transit –
such as the potential for lowering unit
operating costs – will bring some sense to
the planning process and dissipate the
fantasies currently in vogue. in Boston,
the operating cost per passenger-mile of
LRT was 32% cheaper than bus; of rail rapid transit, 55%
cheaper; and of regional rail, 70% cheaper (2002). in LA, LRT
was 24% cheaper than bus; rail rapid transit, 22% cheaper; and regional rail, 22% cheaper.[Source: FTA NTD, 2002; photo of LA Blue Line LRT train: Peter Ehrlich]

With a bit of luck, maybe such a return to dollars-and-sense
reality will occur before too many dubious decisions are made,
and projects launched, from planning in the world of make-believe.